Family and friends,
Guess what I did this week?! Well, what my companion Sister Zenger and I did this week?! We hosted a mini missionary!! One of the stakes in our area needed more sister missionaries to host a few more Laurels to go on a "mini mission," or work in your area with you for 3 days.
So I'll let you know how it went.
It was AWESOME. We picked our 16-year-old mini missionary up Wednesday evening, and she stayed with us until Saturday evening. Her name is Lena Ainzlee Strickling, and she is INCREDIBLE. We had to a little bit of tracting this week for the first time my entire mission, and that sweet future missionary was so bold and unafraid.
This week working with her gave me hope and filled me with so much excitement about the rising generation! And Justin, Lena is a cutie, so maybe you two could...you know...date. She's a junior in high school and such a sweetheart! Haha kidding...maybe.
Anyway, it really did impress me how mature and amazing she was. It was so cool, because all three of us sisters in our temporary trio like doing the same things: kayaking, camping, hiking, backpacking, stargazing, eating, dancing. We got along so well. It's so fun to be with people who have your similar interests. I call Sister Zenger and Sister Strickling tender mercies from the Lord. It truly is so nice and so fun to serve in the Lord's vineyard with people who you get along with so well.
We witnessed many "mini miracles" this week with Lena working in the vineyard with us for a few days. First off, we taught Ray a lesson! Ray kind of fell of the face of the planet for a while, then we decided just to stop by and he was home. He is going through a lot of inner struggle right now. He knows the Church is true, and that this is really what brings him true happiness, but his addiction to cigarettes, among other bad habits, is holding him back. He did say that he wants to meet with us again, but in his own time.
It makes me think of a talk given in our ward a few weeks back from a member of the bishopric. He said to us, "Weigh these two things in your hands: a pack of cigarettes, or the kingdom of God?" He went on to talk about how the Kingdom of God, the Celestial Kingdom, is worth giving up anything and everything that pulls us away from Jesus Christ. But Satan wants to deceive us and make us think it's much more complicated than that. And that is so true!
President and Sister Alba also fed Sister Zenger, Sister Strickling (Lena), Sister Hamilton, Sister Timmons, the APs (assistants to the president), and I dinner Friday night and boy did Sister Alba tell us some funny stories! Remind me when I get home to tell you about her and Michael Jackson ;)
And interesting fact: our temp trio contacted into a drug exchange in downtown Santa Rosa Friday night! It was actually quite humorous. Lena and I started talking to this man just as another man was handing him a "marijuana pipe" and it was very awkward. The man handing him the pipe froze in mid-air with this pipe just out in the air. It was almost like he thought that maybe if he froze, he would be invisible and we wouldn't notice! But we definitely did. It was an interesting conversation...both of these men were clearly under the influence, but they ended up talking with us about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We even invited one to be baptized and he said yes! Granted...he wasn't all there...but it was cool to be able to feel the Spirit and have them recognize it was the Spirit that they were feeling, too.
We also picked up a new investigator! His name is Kenny. We aren't exactly sure how solid he is quite yet, but we had a rather expensive brunch first lesson with him and invited him to be baptized, and he said yes and wants us to come back to teach him on Tuesday!
I also wanted to share a quote from a member of our YSA ward. She said in testimony meeting yesterday: "Maybe I am lost...but at least I'm lost in the right direction."
I love that! I want to let all of you know that if you feel confused about what you want to do in school, with your career, with your family, your friends...whatever it may be, it is okay to not know exactly what you are going to be doing.
In Matthew 6:33 it says "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for itself." I know that even if you don't know exactly what exact decision you will make in a week, a month, a year down the road for those big life-choices we all make, that as long as your are following the Gospel of Jesus Christ and remaining true to those covenants you have made with God, he will make sure that even if you feel "lost" you will at least be lost in the right direction.
Have a wonderful 2014! Make every day the first day of a new year :) Life is all about starting fresh, and becoming the best you: "God doesn't care nearly as much about where you have been as he does about where you are, and with His help, where you are willing to go" (Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Best is Yet to Be," January 2010 Ensign).
Love y'all!
From Santa Rosa,
Sister Nikole Decker
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